Gaming Update: Destiny Beta

The Destiny beta has just ended a few weeks ago and I can say confidently that the game is looking absolutely fantastic!! The beta was released on July 17th for Playstation 4 owners and on July 23rd for Xbox one owners and was up and running for about a week. Sadly now it is over and the only thought I had was how great the beta was and how I couldn’t wait for the game to come out! So here is the rundown: The beta revealed a few different modes, campaign missions and a small portion was a multiplayer mode. After the tutorial was over, it enters you into the lobby and shows a space ship at which point the player selects which mission they would like to start and which part of the universe to travel to.

The beta has about 5 different campaign missions each one set for a higher player rank. The missions all take place in different areas on Earth and at one point the beta allowed access to one other campaign mission on the Moon.When the game starts the first thing you noticed are the gorgeous environments and fantastic lighting effects. As you travel around the different locations you come across all kinds of strange alien enemies, who at first seem like a breeze to take down.

As you rank up and obtain stronger weapons and gear, the enemies become a much greater challenge. At a few points in the beta, there were a few groups of enemies that were unbeatable, and had question marks over their heads, which raised the question of what would be the rewards for defeating such a difficult enemy. Eventually I found out that those enemies in the beta were a much higher level than my character and therefore I was not able to even put a dent into their health bar. On top of this, the campaign missions featured public events which tasked players to join together from different parts of the map to participate in various objectives such as fighting waves of enemies or taking down a mini boss.

To help the players combat such intense objectives the players each have a special ability based on their unique character class which is selected in the beginning of the beta. The classes are the Warlock, Titan, and Hunter. The Warlock has projectile ability that is summoned like an energy bomb, the Titan slams down with unstoppable force and crushes foes, and the Hunter summons an extremely powerful pistol that turns gold and does insane amounts of damage. Although the game is all in first person there is map called the Tower in which all the players are viewed in 3rd person. Here the player can upgrade his or herself with new armor, socialize with other players as well as purchase new weapons and enhancements, and view their badass character before jumping back into the game.

The Destiny Beta’s ranking system capped at only level 8 but it gave you just enough sense of what to expect in the full game in terms of variety, difficulty and possible armors and weapon unlocks you could receive at later levels. By the last day of the beta, I had 2 assault rifles, a helmet, and a chest armor that I was unable to use until I reached level 10, and I was excited to see what they were capable of since their stats where much higher than any of my current gear.

The campaign mode gave the players simple objective based missions and a few of them had boss battles that were challenging and fun. The multiplayer component of the game was called Crucible and can be joined with a lobby of up to 6 players for 6v6 competitive play. The multiplayer mode available in the Beta was called Control and tasked players with controlling 3 flags on the map for the most time as well as obtaining points for kills. The team who reached a score of 20,000 points before the opposing team wins the match. Crucible was an amazing and well balanced competitive experience I found myself wanting to play more competitive modes as my skills increased.

I only had 2 issues with the beta which were technical issues that were not connected to the actual the gameplay. The first issue I encountered was when I had completed the tutorial level, the game was trying to enter a lobby for the first time and simply froze. I was only able to select a location to travel to, but the game would have issues loading up the map and connecting to the server. The other issue I encountered with the beta was communication through the xbox party chat. When I would be in a party with friends their voice would cut out when the game was running simultaneously. We found that the only solution was to start a party then switch to the in-game chat and only then we had a solid communication connection.

There is still plenty of time for Bungie to correct these small technical issues before the time the game is officially released. Overall, beta was an absolute blast to play, it showcased the game’s fantastic graphics, and introduced a campaign and multiplayer mode and delivered to players a taste of what to expect in the full release. Destiny is set to come out on September, 9th, 2014. Below are some photos of the game and a video of Beta gameplay, enjoy!